Thursday, October 31, 2024

Spooky cinema: My 53 personal favorites

Happy Halloween!

Earlier this month I mentioned programming my own Halloween movie marathon. But how could I ever choose just four or five movies?!! Instead, I decided to compile a list of my spooky favorites, including TV mini-series. Other than deciding to exclude outstanding movies that lean almost entirely toward being horror comedies (think Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), the criteria used here is that these are simply films I love. Not the best, in all instances. And not the only ones I love. Just personal favs.

It's a list of 53 because I'm 53. Maybe I'll revise it every year and add one to the overall number.

Here they are, chronologically. Looking at it myself, I think this list makes it pretty easy to make some assumptions about me and see some trends. The assumptions would be correct. I'm not complex. Also, wonderfully, I still have a lot to see for the first time.

  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
  • Nosferatu (1922)
  • Le Manoir de la Peur (1927) pictured at top
  • The Old Dark House (1932)
  • The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
  • Cat People (1942)
  • The Curse of the Cat People (1944)
  • Ugetsu (1953)
  • Night of the Demon (1957)
  • The House on Haunted Hill (1959)
  • The Brides of Dracula (1960)
  • The Innocents (1961)
  • Carnival of Souls (1962)
  • The Haunting (1963)
  • Black Sabbath (1963)
  • Kwaidan (1964)
  • The Last Man on Earth (1964)
  • The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
  • Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
  • Viy (1967)
  • The Devil Rides Out (1968)
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  • Robin Redbreast (1970)
  • The House That Dripped Blood (1971)
  • Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972)
  • Gargoyles (1972)
  • Horror Express (1972)
  • Messiah of Evil (1973)
  • The Exorcist (1973)
  • From Beyond the Grave (1974)
  • The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974)
  • Black Christmas (1974)
  • The Signalman (1976)
  • The Man from Nowhere (1976)
  • Suspiria (1977)
  • Cathy's Curse (1977)
  • Dawn of the Dead (1978)
  • Halloween (1978)
  • Salem's Lot (1979)
  • The Shining (1980)
  • The Changeling (1980)
  • Poltergeist (1982)
  • The Midnight Hour (1985)
  • The Lost Boys (1987)
  • The People Under the Stairs (1991)
  • The Sixth Sense (1999)
  • Session 9 (2001)
  • Trick 'r Treat (2007)
  • Let the Right One In (2008)
  • The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
  • The Conjuring (2013)
  • The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
  • Midnight Mass (2021)

High honorable mention and/or I forgot about them at the time I wrote the post:
The Skull (1965), Isle of the Dead (1945), The Appointment (1981), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Misery (1990), Psycho (1960), The Golem: How He Came Into the World (1920), The Haunted Palace (1963), House (1977), Dead of Night (1945), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Frankenstein (1931), Kill, Baby, Kill (1966), The City of the Dead (1960), Ghostwatch (1992), Burnt Offerings (1976), The Body Snatcher (1945), Tales from the Crypt (1972), House of Usher (1960), Son of Frankenstein (1939), I Saw the TV Glow (2024), The White Reindeer (1952), The Wicker Man (1973), Doctor Sleep (2019), Deep Red (1975).

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